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The thin end of the wedge


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Deputy leader of the Labour party, Tom Watson, tweeted this:

I have written to Google CEO @SundarPinchai calling on him, as a matter of urgency, to remove the YouTube page of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, aka Tommy Robinson. pic.twitter.com/3smqXuVr1u

— Tom Watson (@tom_watson) March 2, 2019

Now, whether or not you like/dislike Tommy Robinson or agree/disagree with his views and politics, isn't a dangerous path we may be going down when a politician can "call on" the CEO of a social media company to take action like this? What next, will he be picking on someone else he dislikes and suggesting that their bank closes their account, the power company shuts off their electricity and gas etc? Social media companies are already engaged in shutting down the accounts of people they disagree with, without having a tinpot would be dictator like Watson "calling on " them to do it.

 

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Suggest this little demonstration of authoritarianism by Brutus Watson, will be in preparation for his leadership bid, but I'm not sure a Palace coup will do it though !   As the philosopher said - (words to the effect) "I may disagree with your view, but I will defend to the death, your right to express it". Freedom of speech is the first essential to a free society, something that the PC Liberals have been eroding for decades.

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Perhaps social media ,& the internet in general, could do with some radical censorship. Although there is plenty of good ,informative & innocent information on the web ,all the ills & evils of the world are also on the net & social media.

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That's all very well Davy but the question is who will be the censor? In this case we have a two bit self-serving politician trying to silence someone he disagrees with and trying to (mis)use his position to do so. There are a lot of people who agree with, and want to hear, what Tommy Robinson has to say so are they to be censored as well? Like I say this is the thin end of the wedge, and such censorship should not be tolerated by free-minded people. If you don't like what people have to say then either don't listen to them or face their arguments with rational arguments of your own. Mr Watson, being a member of the countries top talking shop, should know this.

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That's why the internet in general needs censorship ,we would soon complain if a terrorist was spouting bile to incite hatred. Free speech is wonderful but the problem is the idiots who act upon it ,& that is not usually the clown who makes the bullets.

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Sorry Dave. but I have to disagree;  imo no form of censorship is permissible in a free society. If people can be led astray by fake news, I think you have to question their strength of character and education. You could argue of course, that all politicians are con merchants at the end of the day, so truth, if attainable, is always the casualty.

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The Internet was designed by a large number of engineering graduates to meet the needs of people just like themselves. It is not surprising that the effects on the easily led are ill considered. It is constructed on principles that deliberately make censorship hard and at an infamous meeting in Washington the group controlling the specifications went as far as forbidding design changes to make it easier to allow lawful interception of communications, despite it being a legal requirement in every democracy.

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Still disagree ;  in the past knowledge and information was monopolised by elites, which gave them power over the masses;  the internet has democratised information in favour of the masses. Whether such information is factual or reliable is an open question; but to suggest that "the easily led" are at risk appears a rather arrogant view of the Prols.

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If you're going to censor the internet because the "easily led" are at risk, then you are also going to have to severely censor the Mainstream Media with particular attention being held to the output of the likes of the BBC News, Channel 4 News, Daily Mail, Daily Express, Daily Mirror and other major news sources. I won't include the Sun because does anybody really take that rag seriously? 🤔

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11 hours ago, asperity said:

If you're going to censor the internet because the "easily led" are at risk, then you are also going to have to severely censor the Mainstream Media with particular attention being held to the output of the likes of the BBC News, Channel 4 News, Daily Mail, Daily Express, Daily Mirror and other major news sources. I won't include the Sun because does anybody really take that rag seriously? 🤔

Of course it is the Mainstream Media which have lowered their standards because information is available to the those who search the Internet. The Mainstream reverting to former standards of taste and decency would lower the temperature of the debate quite a lot in my view. I have given up watching the news on Television because of the way it is presented and what they choose to show which I found unnecessary.

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10 hours ago, Davy51 said:

So ,it is also perfectly acceptable to allow content that might be grooming by a predatory individual or harassment that might encourage a person to take their own life because Tommy Robinson needs to be heard ?

That's a straw man argument. There are already laws in place to prosecute such actions by an individual, without removing the right to free speech of the rest of us. If Tommy Robinson says something on the internet that breaks the law in some way he is leaving himself open to prosecution, and you can bet your bottom dollar that the PTB are watching him very carefully on that score!! Having said that, it is clear that our increasingly totalitarian politicians are itching to bring in ever more stringent laws to prevent the population being able to criticise them on line. Be very careful what you wish for. 😎

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If you read my original post , i have mentioned nothing about free speech. I posted about the evil content of a lot of the information on the internet in general. Also social media needs censoring if it promotes terrorism ,hate,  influences people to commit suicide ,harasses others or promotes grooming. The stuff will no doubt still be accessible to surfers of the dark web, but should it really be in the public domain. I don't think so ,but that is just my opinion.

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So ,you have never heard of this image that crops up on social media sites that prompts people to commit suicide ,or the people that pose as young people to befriend & groom boys & girls for illicit ends. It is actually in the public domain that these things happen & the police already know but ,surely, instances like that should be filtered from the internet before becoming publicly  available. It shouldn't be a police matter to surf the net as vigilantes.

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2 hours ago, asperity said:

No I haven't heard of this mysterious image that tells people to commit suicide. As for children being groomed on the internet, that seems to be a failure of parenting and/or the education system.

These instances have been on the news more than once ,we hear of terrorists being lured over to the dark side on facebook & young girls being tempted on facebook to become terrorist wives ,who want to come home after 3 years & pretend it never happened.

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We seem to be already on a dangerous slippery road!

Saying anything negative about feminism, Islam, the LGBT issues, about Judaism (this includes criticizing Israel), calling someone coloured among other things,  is likely to get anyone doing so into trouble even if the intention was not  to offend.

Davy how would you censor the internet

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